In her apartment, which was coincidentally decorated in red, white and black on Valentine's Day, Camille Tiangco sat cross-legged on her couch with a beaming smile on her face.

Her boyfriend surprised her with a gift that truly spoke -- well, sang -- for itself.

A quartet of singers from the Nittany Knights Barbershop Chorus serenaded her with love songs such as "I Love You Truly," "Heart of My Heart" and "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."

Tiangco (senior-industrial engineering) was surprised when she opened the door and saw singers.

"I thought it was FedEx," she said. "I was like, 'This is the wrong apartment.' "

Her boyfriend, Itai Gans (sophomore-premedicine), fibbed that a package was on the way. He told her that a package would be delivered during the afternoon.

Joking, Tiangco said, "He's really sneaky."

A singing valentine is almost always a surprise, Bill Drosnes, the baritone in the quartet, said.

"Sometimes it's embarrassing, sometimes it seems like a joke," he said. But other times he said, "people tear up.

People realize after about 30 seconds it's a really heartfelt gift."

Tiangco said she doesn't cry too often. Instead, "it kind of just made me laugh. I thought it was really cute."

While Tiangco received her valentine, many gifts had to be cancelled because of the weather.

Drosnes and his quartet braved the snow yesterday and performed about 12 singing valentines, though the weather did force some changes in their schedule.

"Some got cancelled. Some got moved around. It made driving interesting, too," tenor Paul Wagner said.

School cancellations at Penn State and other local school districts affected the quartet's schedule because a few valentines that were planned for students in class and professors teaching were cancelled.

"Usually if there's other people around, they're peeking their heads in to watch," Drosnes said.

Drosnes has been singing valentines for nine years and for him, "it's a blast."

"Whoever ordered it went to the trouble to think of something different. It's very effective," he said.

Gans started planning the gift when he saw a sign about singing valentines at the Waffle Shop.

"Since I knew that she liked music I thought it would be cool," he said.

For Tiangco, a singing valentine was an effective, cool gift.

"Well, this is, like, so Itai. He's pretty creative. I guess he picked something pretty cool," Tiangco said.